Green Options

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During the past 5 years, Americans have done a lot of talking about our oil addiction. In that same time period, oil suppliers (aka pushers) have had an amazing run of economic success. There are now major efforts underway by the suppliers to tell us not to worry our little heads about how much money is flowing out of our pockets and into theirs. They are also spending a lot of advertising dollars on a campaign to tell us how hard they are working to provide us with the products to which we are addicted.

The spectacle that has really gotten me concerned is watching our leading addicts - the people who spend a lot of time flying around in jets, helicopters, and armored convoys - consuming vast quantities of oil jetting over to the turf where the key suppliers live to convince them to pump enough new product so that we can go back to being contented, satisfied junkies with slightly lower monthly costs of supporting our habit.

Of course, you have heard some good advice from many people about how to reduce your own dependence and you might have even read some decent advice about how the whole country can work to reduce its habit to more manageable levels. What you have not heard much about, however, is a prescription that has the potential for completely fracturing the power of the pushers and stopping the unbalanced flow of money that has distorted the world’s system of production and rewards.

My preferred solution is the one offered by President Eisenhower, a man who knew a bit about the benefits of negotiating from a position of strength.

The phrase “oil addiction” has been uttered and written countless times since George W. Bush used it in his 2006 State of the Union address. While many still rightly question the current President’s commitment to ending US dependence on oil, David Sandalow, assistant secretary of state and senior director on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, notes that the concept of “oil addiction,” and the failure to address it substantively, both predate the current administration. His new book, Freedom from Oil: How the Next President Can End the United States’ Oil Addiction, traces the use of the phrase back to the Nixon administration, and observes that every president since has struggled with the concept… and ultimately failed to do anything to address it.

Despite his political leanings, though, Sandalow’s purpose in Freedom from Oil isn’t to criticize the current administration, or to bemoan the overall lack of progress in lessening American dependence on oil. Rather, he sets a much more daunting challenge for himself: illustrate how the US can overcome its dependence on this resource that’s responsible for environmental damage, security concerns, and economic indebtedness to some of the world’s most unsavory governments. In presenting his ideas, Sandalow deftly illustrates the depth of our oil addiction… and the complex circumstances any administration will have to address in order to set the country on a path towards a low-carbon energy future.